May, 2011

Issue #20

Salvation
By Randal Schmidt

He stumbled and reeled in the midday heat, and when he fell a jagged rock was in the small of his back and the sun in his eyes. His shirt was little more than ribbons now, the flight through wilderness having shorn away what little civilization had been left in him. His breath came in ragged gasps.

Somewhere in the foothills below, the riders were coming.

He kicked with his heels at the dirt and grit and scrambled up. He picked up a rock and flung it off the mountain in some feeble effort at resistance. Exhaustion slowed his steps and the sheer faces of stone did not help his flight. He picked his way amongst the uneven rises and struggled to keep a footing while pushing himself ever higher. He'd left the pine forest long ago and now only a hundred or so more yards separated him from the summit.

Holes had appeared in his boots when he crested the last rise. He threw himself on an altar of stone like some pilgrim seeking the face of a god who had long since abandoned this land to the ravages of time and man. Behind him the riders still, but in front a steep descent to a wide prairie with the thin line of a lonely river snaking through the otherwise parched country. The land was dotted with trees and here and there, groves of them offered shade from the unforgiving sun. Beginning immediately on the far side of that river, a dense forest stretched towards the horizon.

In the miles of land before him, he saw no living creature except for a few circling hawks caught on updrafts of warm air. But for them, nothing moved. His moments of rest had been short and infrequent in the days since he'd fled the town, and he paused on this summit to catch his breath before descending into an unknown country.

He allowed himself a sip from a dwindling canteen that he'd strapped to his belt with a short thong of animal skin. When he'd replaced this at his waist, he set off again and aimed his course as straight as possible for the thin river, his only hope in the wide barren world.

His first steps in descent were hesitant and careful. He feared a slip and a long fall, bouncing to his death amidst the razor edges of the mountainside. His only relief was that it may likewise slow the posse of mounted men that even now must be gaining ground on him.

By the time he reached the mountain's foot and began to put his weary boots on flat dirt, the riders had still not reached the summit. He had no idea how far back they'd be or how much of a lead he'd had on them when he shot his way out of the hangman's noose three days ago.

He'd ridden hard for the first two, pausing only to relieve himself or to collect water when he got the rare chance or to pick up what little game he could shoot from the saddle in full gallop. This he ate raw as he rode, not daring either to stop or to make a fire to serve as a beacon for his pursuers. For two days, he beat a path as southwards as he could reckon, hell-bent on leaving any traces of man behind, desperately fleeing the vestiges on law that reached out this far into the frontier.

But the law was not eager to let him leave. On the second night out of town, he'd caught the light from the lawmen's camp on the land, unknown miles behind him. He could not be sure of their numbers, but he knew their intent and that was enough to drive him onwards in blind flight.

On the morning of the third day, he'd killed his horse.

Her flanks were raw from his spurs, but he had neither the time nor the heart to pay this any mind so he pushed her on. In a forest of pine, she'd collapsed from exhaustion in mid-sprint and thrown him forward end over end. He'd come to a stop when his back struck the base of a tree, and he'd flown to his feet in a murderous rage, his gun un-holstered in the same motion. The horse's breath was fading when the pistol cracked and thundered in the ancient forest, boring a small hole straight between her eyes and putting out the life in them.

He'd kicked at the carcass and cursed the uncaring trees and spit on the ground and sat crumpled next to his last companion in this world and wept for the first time in years.

After a time, he'd cut the saddle from her and emptied the packs of it on the forest floor. He sorted out what he could carry with him, taking only two canteens, some wads of powder and shot and filling his pockets with raw squirrel meat. He took his knife also, but the rest of the effects he left scattered amongst the pine needles and horse blood.

From there he'd gone on foot, weaving through the trees and cutting his face on bits of undergrowth and small limbs that swatted at him as if the forest itself opposed his escape. By the time he reached its edge, he'd devoured the last of the squirrel meat and dried blood coated his chin. Ahead of him was a stretch of land unbroken by any feature and just beyond this, rolling foothills climbed into a mountain ridge that ran unbroken towards either horizon.

There was no other way but up and over, and he'd done this with the riders ever gaining on his trail and his strength ever failing. The canteens became lighter all the time.

And now he stood on the opposite side of that ridge with more land in front of him and only one canteen that would soon be empty, and the strange river was unknown miles away.

There was nothing to do but run, and he did, his mind holding no thoughts but this. He had ventured into a world beyond exhaustion, and visions crept in on it and tainted reality with dreamlike uncertainty. These were not the mere mirages of desert travelers, but ethereal beings burst free from some subterranean prison. They danced in orgiastic fury around him, mocking his flight as they reveled in the fate that was bound to come. He felt them prod him onward in hateful triumph, and despair gripped his soul as he had never felt it before. The very depths of hell yawned in his heart.

He screamed to a god whose face he had never known, screamed mercy at the top of his lungs. An outlaw's lament rose from those badlands like the dust kicked up by an errant sandstorm.

A distant answer brought his eyes back to the mountain. The riders had made the summit and yelled down to the plain at their hapless query. They were arrayed for war, each bearing a rifle tucked in a scabbard on their saddle. They were a party of one mind: his death.

One of them fired from their perch but the hot metal ball fell nowhere near him. He had already scrambled far out of their range. The crack of that rifle reverberated across the empty plain and mixed with the demonic laughter that now surrounded him. His satanic companions welcomed the appearance of the riders with lecherous grunting, wantonly carousing about him as he fled on towards the river.

A formidable distance separated him still from his pursuers, but their appearance spurred him like a crazed animal. From somewhere deep within, he summoned a hidden strength — the last of it — to pound out a steady gait, his legs feeling disconnected as they moved in rhythm. Ahead he could see where the land sloped gently to the miserable river, and he made for this without thinking as if this line of water denoted some immutable border between two lands that only he could cross.

With each footstep, he knew the riders pounded closer, their guns ready to deliver him unto the Final Judgment. The visions squealed with delight, fat sows of debauchery now rolling in anticipation of the blood to fall, exhorting him to run faster in mocking satisfaction.

The sound of a gun not far behind. The yell of the riders. The hooves of their chargers on the prairie. The devil's laughter.

He stumbled now. The ground had become uneven as it fell away to the river. More shots rang out as his feet splashed at last in the edge of the water. On the other side, the thick forest loomed like an impenetrable wall.

Two hundred yards behind. Now one hundred. The riders drew closer, the shots more frequent. Balls struck the river around him, sending up showers of cool water. Smoke spouted from the ends of their rifles and with each puff, he expected to leave this world.

Less than a hundred yards away and on they came. He could see they numbered thirteen all told, come to kill him for his crimes. He waded knee deep in the river, and a shot struck him in his right arm. He rent his shirt in desperation and tore what little was left of it away.

The sound of rifle shots and furious laughter now reached a crescendo, the cloven hooved spirits at the climax of their arcane ritual. He stood in his last river and turned to face his executioners.

They were fifty feet away when the nearest rider's skull exploded in a shower of gore, and he fell from his horse. The shot came from behind him, across the river and as the other riders fought to control their startled horses, a salvo erupted from the tree line. Under this torrent of gunfire, four more men were stricken dead in their saddles or fell lifeless by the riverside.

From within that malicious forest leapt a company from which even his devilish visions fled. The attackers with twisted faces obscured by war paint burst forth and fell upon the riders in a blood lust unrivaled in the long annals of war.

He fell from where he stood knee deep in the river, fell as if he'd been killed when the arm shot was his only wound. He floated to the middle of the river, amidst the wild splashing as the red skinned warriors crossed under the fire from the remaining riders. All about were the screams of the dying and the war cries of the braves and fearful sobbing and all sounds of war, the like of which he had never heard in all his years as an outlaw.

The riders who had fallen from their mounts were set upon with knives and whatever manner of sharp objects the savages possessed. Their skulls were split open and their scalps rent away and held in bloody triumph, flesh trophies torn from the defeated. It was willful carnage and the not quite dead split the skies with their death cries.

And in this massacre, he had floated some distance down the river, unseen by either the dying riders or the war crazed Indians. He floated on his back, the sun in his eyes and blood from his arm staining the water around him, borne silently away from the slaughter, borne out of death on his baptismal river into freedom and a new life.

Click here to be notified when each new issue comes out!